a considerable city of France in Picardy, and the capital of Ponthieu; the river Somme runs through the middle of it, and divides it into two parts. It has a collegiate church and twelve parish-churches, the most considerable of which are St George's and St Giles's, besides a great number of monasteries and nunneries, a bailiwick, and a prelatical court. It is a fortified town; the walls are flanked with bastions, and surrounded by large ditches; and it was never yet taken. The country about it is low, marshy, and dirty. It is pretty well peopled, and is famous for its woollen manufactory. It is about fifteen miles east of the British channel, and ships may come from thence by the river Somme to the middle of the town. It is ninety miles almost directly north of Paris. E. Long. 2. 6. Lat. 50. 7.

ABBÉY, a monastery, or religious house, governed by a superior under the title of abbot or abbess.

Abbey differs from priories, in that the former are under the direction of an abbot, and the others of a prior; but abbot and prior (we mean a prior conventional) are much the same thing, differing in little but the name.

Fauchet observes, that, in the early days of the French monarchy, dukes and counts were called abbots, and duchies and counties abbey. Even some of their kings are mentioned in history under the title of abbots. Philip I., Louis VI., and afterwards the dukes of Orleans, are called abbots of the monastery of St Aignan. The dukes of Aquitain were called abbots of the monastery of St Hilary, at Poitiers; and the earls of Anjou of S. Aubin, &c. Monasteries were at first nothing more than religious houses, whither persons retired from the bustle of the world to spend their time in solitude and devotion. But they soon degenerated from their original institution, and procured large privileges, exemptions, and riches. They prevailed greatly in Britain before the reformation; particularly in England: and as they increased in riches, so the state became poor; for the lands, which these regulars possessed, were in mortua manu, i.e. could never revert to the lords who gave them. This inconvenience gave rise to the statutes against gifts in mortuam, which prohibited donations to these religious houses; and Lord Coke tells us, that several lords, at their creation, had a clause in their grant, that the Donor might give or sell his land to whom he would (exceptis viris Religiosis & Judaeis) excepting Monks and Jews.

These places were wholly abolished in England at the time of the Reformation; Henry VIII. having first appointed visitors to inspect into the lives of the monks and nuns, which were found very disorderly: upon which, the abbots, perceiving their dissolution unavoidable, were induced to resign their houses to the king, who by that means became invested with the abbey-lands: these were afterwards granted to different persons, whose descendents enjoy them at this day: they were then valued at 2,853,000 l. per annum, an immense sum in those days.